Interesting, the Hawks crowd of 3693 versus Tigers was remarkably close to the previous games where the Hawks played the Blaze and 3693 attended.

What's the chance of the exact same number of people turning up to the game? ... er, ah .. none/extremely slim.

What's the chance of an official at the Hawks making up the crowd figure ..... or maybe forgetting to change last week's form?

I do not believe the crowd numbers from last year in the NBL, and until we go to an independent reporting mechanism, like venue's reporting crowds instead of clubs, then they will continue to be questionable for fans, for sponsors and for TV Executives.

HoldenV8: Auckland has just hosted the Rugby World Cup finals, over 6 thousand people to see the Kings isn't bad

There weren't many empty seats @ Vector apart from in the corners where the view was pretty shit anyway.
I agree anon, Vectors max capacity with a court is around that figure

Another good round really, let's hope it continues. The better scheduling the last couple of seasons really appears to be making a difference. Shame about the need to play on Sunday nights this year, that will hurt.

So here's last seasons reasons for crowds to be up everywhere, regurgitated.

a) as Paul said better scheduling, longer season, more spacing of home games (14 home games over 25 weekends, opposed to 14 over 21)
b) Removal of Wednesday night games
C) FTA, which everyone said would bring the crowds flocking back to NBL (that was prior to last season)
d) Return of the Kings (virtually the sole reason nbl crowds were "up" on "average" last season)

I am sure there were others. But basically all the conditions were in play last season for crowds to be much better. Those conditions largely exist this season as well, excepting that Sunday arvo games (awkward) have become Sunday night games (yuk).

I think crowds only went up 9% last year without the Kings so that is a fair point. Let's hope now that Sydney and Adelaide can actually start winning at home and generate some really good crowds.

Interestingly, the Breakers figure of 6400 didnt include free tickets, hence why commentators and people at the game thought it was a near sell-out.

Good point Paul, Breakers figures were "tickets sold" not bums in seats.

No, there were supposedly a few hundred more at the game.

To Anon #337048, I'm pretty sure that Vector Arena holds as much for basketball as it does for netball which is the arena's seated capacity of 12,000.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the crowd was a bad one, it was after all a NZ basketball record crowd. I just thought that with the game being the Breakers first home game of the season, and considering they are the defending NBL champs, AND they were playing the Kings who seem to be the team that everyone else wants to see (so the 'spin doctors' would have people believe) I honestly thought they would have posted a bigger crowd figure than 6,383. Sure its a good crowd, so far the biggest of the NBL season and at the end will be among the top 5 crowds of the season, I'm just surprised it wasn't at least 8,000. I wasn't expecting a full house (though would have been nice to see) but just over half full.....I wonder if the Breakers will look to use VA for future NBL Grand Final games, should they make it again of course.

HO, I also noticed that the crowd figure posted for the Hawks v Tigers was the same as the Hawks v Blaze game at the `Gong. Coincidence or did someone mess up the figures? But seriously, according to the figure posted there were 2,107 empty seats at the WEC for both games. Were there really that many for the game on Sunday?

A 'sellout crowd' doesn't always mean a capacity crowd. Remember in Rd.2 the Wildcats v Tigers game was a sellout at the 4,500 Challenge Stadium and the figure posted was 4,300. There are times when some people don't show up despite having purchased a ticket

HoldenV8, where were the thousands of empty seats then?

mystro, it was reported before the game that the venue was being curtained (or similar) for the game.